Articles Archive for June 2007

An Olympic-sized drain on corporate foundations and non-profits will ?starve city anti-poverty services? because the money is being siphoned off for use in getting the Games in 2016, a coalition of 17 social service organizations charged today. He named Mayor Daley and Patrick G. Ryan of Aon as responsible for a plan to divert funds for costs estimated to reach $5 billion including $1.1 billion needed to build a lakeside Olympic Village.
Reverend Abbott Washburn, who has been recently named head of CONSERVE [City on Notice to …

By Tom Roeser
The coming congressional campaign is expected to focus a conflict of interest charge by a Democratic opponent against Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Illinois). And it will have to do with his wife.
Once regarded as a boring bachelor type workaholic, Weller, 50, changed a few years ago. His marriage is the most unique in U. S. history. As the congressman from the 11th district west of Chicago beset with farm fields, exurban sprawl and rail yards branching out from the city, Weller is a farmer, pro-life …

By Tom Roeser
Chicago is famous for losing people; but after a while they often turn up in a trunk?dead but accounted for. But yesterday Rosalie Schultz, 64, really got lost. She was already dead but had been transported to the Cook county medical examiner?s morgue for an autopsy. Then somebody filed her away in a cooler. When the funeral director came to pick her up, nobody could find her.
Thereupon the TV cameras raced to interview the interim chief medical examiner. He said with a shrug that …

Illinois Republicans may have found a U. S. Senate candidate against Dick Durbin, a West Point grad who narrowly missed getting elected to Congress in 1994 because the fix was in.
Jim Nalepa, a LaGrange businessman who has been active in the GOP for fifteen years was a dead-on almost sure thing to defeat Democrat Bill Lipinski (D-Illinois) in 1994. It was the year Republicans took over the U.S. House. Lipinski was struggling trying to justify a lifetime of liberal voting to an upsurge that called for house-cleaning …

The Bob Thomas lawsuit just surfaced again, as bizarrely dramatic as ever. The side that lost round one launched an ingenious counterattack.
Thomas is chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court. In January 2004 he sued the Kane County Chronicle and Bill Page, then a Chronicle columnist, over some columns Page had written a few months before. According to these columns, Thomas, a ?Republican party heavyweight? from DuPage County, was ?pushing hard for very severe sanctions? when a disciplinary case involving the state?s attorney of neighboring Kane County came before the …

There’s something appealing about taxing cars and trucks that traverse the Loop, as Ald. Edward Burke (14th) suggests: It would tap suburban and other drivers who supposedly don’t pay for those city streets.
It would satisfy Chicagoans who believe suburbanites are moochers, enjoying the city’s benefits and amenities without paying for them. Burke himself suggested as much when he pointed out that suburbanites don’t pay for the city’s vehicle sticker.

Thursday, Jun 21, 2007
* Dan Seals announced yesterday that he will run for Congress again next year. From Lynn Sweet?
A Democratic primary is shaping up in the north suburban 10th congressional district, where Dan Seals, the 2006 nominee, will have to defeat newcomer Jay Footlik, who served in the Clinton White House, for the nomination to run against Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.).
Seals announced on Wednesday he will seek a rematch. In 2006, Seals ? making his first run for office ? gave Kirk a strong challenge, getting 47 percent …

1937: Born to Peter and Matilda Vrdolyak on Chicago’s Southeast Side.
1950: Enters St. Joseph’s Seminary in Westmont for three years; graduates from Mount Carmel High School, and then St. Joseph’s College in Indiana.
1960: Accused with six other union members of assault to commit murder. Acquitted.
1962: Marries Denise Danaher.
1963: Graduates from the University of Chicago Law School and is admitted to the bar.
1971: Elected alderman; launches “coffee rebellion” of new aldermen against the old guard.
1977: Persuades the city to sell the alley behind his home; installs a tennis court and pool.

The other day I lavished praise on the Sun-Times for a major back-to-the-future initiative: live telephone operators. The Tribune, I added regretfully, still fields phone calls the new-fashioned way — electronically.
Let me correct myself. Live operators do exist at the Tribune. Although there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to reach one, some callers have had success by taking the following steps. First, dial 312-222-3232.